Lindstrom, Coyotes spoil Luongo's return

Jan 16, 2009 - 6:51 AM
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Ticker) -- Joakim Lindstrom and the
Phoenix Coyotes did not wait long to crash the party.

Lindstrom recorded his first two-goal game of his career and
Ilya Bryzgalov made 31 saves as the Coyotes spoiled the return
of Roberto Luongo with a 4-1 triumph over the Vancouver Canucks
on Thursday.

Defenseman Keith Yandle recorded a goal and an assist, Peter
Mueller also tallied and captain Shane Doan set up a pair of
tallies as Phoenix improved to 3-1-0 in its last four games.

"I thought we did a lot of good things," Coyotes coach Wayne
Gretzky said. "As I told the players yesterday, it's not easy
to win. It's hard to win. Winning is hard. But it's much more
rewarding than losing.

"I give them a great deal of credit. They all worked extremely
(hard), and it was a nice team effort."

After a 24-game absence with a groin injury, Luongo turned aside
28 shots for Vancouver, which lost its fourth in a row overall
and sixth consecutive game at General Motors Place.

"He's probably one of the best goalies in the world, if not the
best, but it's hard for anyone if you're down for that amount of
time," Lindstrom said. "We were talking about putting pucks on
the net and going to the net, and I thought we executed pretty
well."

"We've got to be a little more confident, for sure," Vancouver's
Mats Sundin said. "We've got to get a better start and get
everybody into the game quicker, instead of letting the opponent
get the start they did tonight. We have another game at home
here in a couple of nights, and we have to get a better start
than we did tonight."

Daniel Sedin netted his team-leading 22nd goal for the Canucks,
who fell to 1-4-2 in their last seven contests.

"We've got to trust each other out there that everybody's doing
their job," Sedin said. "Right now, we're working hard, but
we're in the wrong areas.

"We're working hard, we're just not doing the right things. The
forwards are doing the (defense's) job and the (defense) is
doing the forwards' job. We've got to get back and trust each
other to do our job."

Lindstrom gave Luongo a rude greeting just 65 seconds into the
game.

On the Coyotes' first shot, the 25-year-old Swede caught the
netminder moving across the crease and beat him between the pads
to quickly silence the crowd.

Lindstrom doubled the advantage over 12 minutes later,
collecting the puck in his skates following Yandle's blast from
the point before tapping it past Luongo for his seventh goal of
the season.

"Two goals, obviously, but the most important thing is to win
the game," Lindstrom said. "We can't give up chances, so that
was my first priority."

Yandle gave the Coyotes a three-goal bulge just 2:22 into the
second period, when he beat Luongo with a one-timer for his
first tally in 35 games.

"It was a big (one) for me," Yandle said. "I got one early in
the season, first game, and I haven't been able to find the back
of the net. It felt (good) to get that one."

Just over six minutes later, Phoenix extended the lead to 4-0.
Mueller picked up a loose puck following a faceoff win and beat
Luongo between the pads for his 10th tally of the campaign.

"Obviously, I think we were struggling a little bit out there,"
Luongo said. "We seem like a team that's thinking too much out
there. We've just go to go out there and play. Obviously for
myself, it was a rough start. These next couple of days are
going to be really important for me in practice to try to
sharpen up as much as I can."

"I thought he was fine," Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault said.
"Obviously, Roberto would have liked to come in and probably
have that first save, be a difference like he always was. He
played a good game. He made some great saves. We didn't give
him the help that we're supposed to give our goaltender to be
successful. It's as simple as that."

Sedin spoiled Bryzgalov's bid for his third shutout of the
season by tucking the puck past him with 8:58 remaining in the
third.